


Life

by Malivrag



Category: Deep Purple (Band), Rock Music RPF
Genre: Gen, M/M, Morally Ambiguous Character, Psychological Drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-28
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2018-12-20 19:40:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11927880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Malivrag/pseuds/Malivrag
Summary: Life: It's not just a word, it's a sentence.(Or, Ian Gillan's complicated interpersonal relationships with his bandmates and not-bandmates in Deep Purple)





	1. Chapter 1

1972

Ian's hands were prone to wandering on long car trips; they liked to slide up Roger's denim-clad legs, his fingers searching out the ticklish spot on the back of Roger's knees, before venturing further to cup the hot bulge between his legs.

"Get off," Roger would huff, kicking at him. "You, get off!"

"Let me touch you, Roger," Ian said, letting his voice go husky and hungry in the way that he knew would get him what he wanted.

As always, Roger would give in -- how could he not? Ian was bigger, stronger, blessed with more than his share of good looks. Resisting him was like trying to hold back the tide. He had Roger sprawled across the seat, his trousers tugged down. His body was all Ian's to do with as he pleased. Ian loved listening to his desperate, ragged breathing, the way Roger would bite his lip, before letting it pop loose when a "Fuck..." escaped him.

The seat springs squeaked, and Ian looked up to see Ritchie Blackmore looking down at them from over the backrest. "What's this, then?" he asked. "What the hell is going on?"

"Care to join us, Ritchie?" Ian asked, getting a dark thrill from the way Ritchie's pupils darkened. You're not looking away, are you, Blackers? Like what you see? "I'm sure Roger won't mind. Would you, Rog?"

Roger trembled under Ian's hands, his breath painting the car window above his head. Ian lowered his head and took him to the root. Roger's body heaved and Ian drank him down. "So good," Ian told him. He looked back over his shoulder, but Ritchie was gone. He missed the best part of the show!

Roger turned his face away in shame.

1987

"It wasn't like that when I was in the band," said Rod Evans. The disgraced former singer of Deep Purple leaned in close to Ian from across the table. "We were just lads who wanted to make rock 'n roll and get famous. There wasn't any of this psychodrama in my time."

Ian tried to imagine Rod Evans tossing off Nick Simper in the back of the tour bus while Ritchie Blackmore looked on. Impossible. Had he and Roger up-ended the dynamics of Deep Purple so utterly? Or had it been Ian alone who brought the storm with him?

If Deep Purple's engine was Paice and Lord, the singer-bassist units had proven to be the thumping, thrumming heart of the band. Rod and Nick. Then Ian and Roger. David and Glenn -- the junkies, as Ian thought of them, disdainfully. The junkies were sitting at his elbow. David Coverdale has a golden lion's mane now, and Glenn Hughes a messy beard. Neither looked anything like their svelte, childish selves who once pranced and preened for Ritchie Blackmore. But then, who amongst us is who he used to be?

"'Ey, Ian," said Glenn, pushing himself into the conversation. "Why don't you ever sing any of our songs? You sang 'Hush'," and here he nodded at Rod. "Surely 'Mistreated' was good enough for you."

"He'd like to pretend we never existed," David answered for him, in his fake, plummy accent.

"That's not so," Ian said. "I am very aware there was a Deep Purple before me and after me."

"Do you think there'll be a Deep Purple after you?" asked Joe Lynn Turner, the lone American of their little group. A winsome thing, Joe was lately the lead singer of Ritchie's other band, Rainbow.

"I think Deep Purple will outlast us all," Ian said sagely. "But as I was saying--"

"Say no more," sighed David. "The answer is always the same."

"-- the reason I don't sing your songs is... imagine catching your lover in bed with another man."

David's hands steepled together. "I was never Ritchie's lover, Ian."

"Me either," said Glenn, shaking his head.

"Certainly not," said Rod.

Joe took a swig of his beer and found something interesting to study on the ceiling.

Ian drew his lips back over his teeth.


	2. Chapter 2

1969

There is nothing alluring in the darkness!

Ugly things lurk in the dark. Things that fear to show their faces: vermin. Secrets. Shame. Black magic.

Ritchie Blackmore slept all day and stayed up all night. He lived his entire life in the darkness. Not long after Ian joined the band, he found himself sitting across from Ritchie in front of the fireplace at this drafty old hotel, Ian so sleepy he could barely hold his head up, and Ritchie pushed a piece of paper and a pen into his hands.

"Write something on it."

Ian's eyelids weighed heavy like anchors. He scribbled on the paper, handwriting gone loopy from exhaustion.

You're not magic. The darkness has no hold on me.

"Crumple it up," Ritchie ordered him. "Don't let me see it. Just cast it into the fireplace."

Ian did as he was instructed. The fire reflected in Ritchie's eyes, dancing there.

In seconds, the piece of paper was so much ash.

Ritchie rose to his feet. "It's called white magic. And love, like a photograph, develops in darkness."

1987

"You were the one hung up on Ritchie Blackmore, not us," said David.

"You'd be selling ladies handbags in Yorkshire if not for him," Ian snapped at him. "Don't pretend he didn't completely change your life."

"He changed our careers. But you're the one who let him get under your skin. Let him become part of you, define you," said Glenn. His brown eyes would be beautiful if not for their manic cocaine qualities. Joe Lynn Turner leaned away from him, as though wary of coming too close or making any sudden movements.

His efforts were for naught. Glenn grabbed Joe by the hand, slipping a ring off his finger. Gone meek with fright, Joe let him. Glenn began to scratch a design in the wooden table in front of him with the stone in the ring. "No, Blackmore didn't cast his spell on me," Glenn went on. "There was someone... another guitar player..."

"Glenn," said David gently, laying a hand on Glenn's shoulder. Ian's eyes flitted from one to the other.

Scratching furiously at the table, Glenn went on. "It's August. It's our birthday. I can talk about him all I want. I fell in love with him." His voice quavered. "The timber of his voice. Each and every callous on his hands. His scent. It's all still so real to me. If I hold very still, I can almost feel his breath on the back of my neck."

"Did he leave you?" Joe asked tentatively, before David could shush him.

"He died," moaned Glenn. He had succeeded in scratching a cross into the table in front of him. He laid down the ring, which was quickly reclaimed by Joe. Glenn fingered the cross shape, then clasped his hands together and prayed.

"Do you even believe in a god?" Ian wondered aloud.

David never took his eyes off Glenn. "Shut it, Gillan. He still prays for him after all these years. Who would pray for you in ten years?"

1993

"What have you done?" Jon Lord asked him. For the first time that Ian can remember, Jon looked old and weary. "Ian, answer me."

Paicey sat slumped in the corner. From time to time he would shake his head and mumble, "This isn't happening. It can't be true."

What have you done?

Ian clamped his mouth shut.

"Answer me! He's gone! Please, tell me what's happened. We could still fix this." Jon couldn't keep the anger in his voice. He was outright pleading now.

What had he done? The unforgivable.


	3. Chapter 3

1987

"I don't know you that well," Glenn said to Ian. "But I think I know something about you."

"Oh, fancy so?"

Joe Lynn Turner took a drink of his beer, his eyes flicking from Glenn to Ian back to Glenn over the rim of his glass.

"I think... I feel... that what makes you so mad about him is the knowledge that, for you, the flame will never die. Ritchie goes on being Ritchie, and that flame just burns and burns." Glenn pursed his lips and looked thoughtful.

Ian laughed at him, a hearty guffaw. "Quite the analysis, Doctor Freud."

"I'm not wrong though," Glenn went on. "Tell me I'm wrong. Go on, tell me."

David leaned across the table to signal to the barkeep for more drinks, putting his body between Glenn and Ian.

"You don't know me at all," Ian told Glenn. "You don't know anything about me and Blackmore." He rubbed at his temples; the static in his head had him all out of sorts in confusion.

"Shame," said Glenn, more to himself than to anyone else. "Ritchie's a pretty evil cat, and he'd love for you to live your whole life through, tormented by him."

1970

Ian couldn't quite wrap his head around the concept that Ritchie Blackmore had a son. Ritchie didn't seem made of the same flesh and blood as most people -- how could he have made a child, sweating out his need late at night in a bed like anyone else? And yet Ian had seen the boy clinging to his mother's hand, waiting for Blackmore backstage at the venue in this grey little German city.

A boy, his dark hair carefully combed and parted, with Blackmore's distinctive features already marked on his face. Ian had dropped to his knees to be at the boy's level, but the boy had hidden his face in the folds of his mother's skirt. He doesn't speak any English, Ritchie had explained, and anyway, Ian you're frightening the child, stand back you big lug.

Ian wondered at Ritchie, the unforeseen dimensions to him. The notch on his finger where once he'd worn a wedding band.

"Do you love him?" Ian asked Ritchie, cornering him after the ex-wife and the boy had left. "Do you? I've never heard you mention him. Can you love anyone but yourself, I wonder?"

"What kind of daft question is that?" Ritchie snapped. "Do I love him? I barely know him."

"So no?"

"He's mine." Ritchie gave him a look like he couldn't believe Ian wasn't getting it. "I created him. He has my name."

1987

"You should let the flame die," Glenn said sagely. "Letting it live on like this is just prolonging your misery."

Ian's new beer sweated a ring onto the tabletop. He looked over at Joe, who was delicately sipping the froth off the top of his own beer.

1970

"Please stop antagonizing Blackmore," a weary Jon Lord pleaded with him backstage. "My nerves can't take any more of this." Ian was fuming after yet another of Ritchie's hissy fits. Tonight, he had refused to play an encore, saying only that the audience didn't "deserve" it.

"He does this all the time!"

"Yes, yes." Jon sighed. "I know. He's notorious for this sort of thing. But it's not worth another row, Ian. I'll have a bald spot if I had to get between the two of you again."

1987

"Let it die," Glenn told him.

1970

"Just let him go," Jon told him.

1970/1987

"No problem," Ian lied.


	4. Chapter 4

1987

"Call me a disgrace if you want," said Rod Evans. "But I'm glad I got out when I did. I didn't end up a pathetic junkie, or still hung up on some banjo player that doesn't care if I live or die."

David snorted at him.

"Oh, and you make mock of me! You've not got the depth of your own caked-on makeup, Coverdale. Your band was assembled for a music video shoot. And you," here Rod addressed Glenn. "Hand-picked to sing in both Deep Purple and Black Sabbath, and you squandered both opportunities to snort that white powder up your nose."

"'Ey now," Ian piped up. "That description fits more than one man at this table."

"I liked those Black Sabbath albums," injected Joe Lynn Turner. Everyone turned to gawk at him; he'd barely said a word all night. He flipped his hair and preened under the attention.

"Thank you, Joe," said Glenn, sincerely.

"I don't need to defend my career to the likes of you," David told Rod. "You dragged the Deep Purple name through the mud. Betrayed our fans. You should be ashamed to even look any of us in the eye."

Rod's face turned red and stormy, but Glenn interrupted the others before a fist-fight could break out. "I've got a secret to tell," said Glenn.

"You don't have to tell these men anything," David said to Glenn, and his attention was so intense that he seemed almost to vibrate with it. Watching him watch Glenn, for the first time that night, Ian was roused out of his own self-absorption. For the first time, he really thought about these men. He had never imagined that either man was capable of a depth of feeling equal to anything Ian himself had ever felt. David and Glenn had a shared history, a dynamic, that existed in of itself, without Ian being any part of it.

"I want to. It's our birthday," said Glenn. He took a deep breath and went on. "After... well, everything seemed bleak. I was doing too much coke, not eating, and I was spending a lot of time with David Bowie. Bowie was paranoid all day and all night. He believed that Jimmy Page wanted his soul."

"The guitarist from Led Zeppelin?" asked Joe.

"What other? Anyway, you know that Blackmore was into those rituals and séances. Called it 'white magic'. And he told me many times that Page did black magic. Evil things. Forbidden things. And Bowie would go on and on about how Page wanted his soul, but have you seen that bloke? He looks like the devil, he acts like the devil, he plays guitar like the devil. I believed it! And I thought, if Blackmore won't help me, perhaps Page will. I thought, I would sell my soul if I could but carry it within me for a few years. So I talked to Bonham and he arranged for me to meet Jimmy Page face to face, and I told him what I wanted."

"Glenn, no," pleaded David.

"Let me finish." Glenn's eyes shone. "Page said to me, You can't make what's dead live again. Even he couldn't bring Tommy back to me. Not for any price, not even for my soul. A couple of years later, Bonham died, and I accepted that he must've told me the truth, for if he could make the dead live again, he would surely have brought Bonham back."

Ian wasn't sure whether to fear for Glenn Hughes, or pity him. David put an arm around Glenn and pulled him close.

"Would you really have done it?" Joe asked.

"In a heartbeat," muttered Glenn as he pressed his face to David's chest. Two wet spots appeared on David's shirt.

"Pathetic junkies," said Rod.

"Oh, bugger off," Ian told him.

1973

They were rowing again. Over what, Ian could never remember -- something that would seem silly in the morning, no doubt. Ritchie had thrown a Coca-Cola bottle at him, which smashed against the wall, and Ian had come at him, roaring. For once, neither Paicey nor Jon Lord was around to get between them.

"You unspeakable toad," snarled Ritchie as Ian advanced on him. He balled up his fist. "You screeching, sodding, vicious little..."

He swung his fist at Ian, and Ian caught it in his hand. For a moment they were pitted one against the other, but Ian's bulk and muscle quickly overwhelmed Ritchie. He pushed him up against the wall, Ritchie's fist still caught tight in his hand. Ritchie's head knocked against the wall, and Ian caught a flash of something in his eyes -- was that fear?

I'm not the villain here! Ian thought to himself. Feeling very hard done by, he pressed his body against Ritchie, forcing a leg between Ritchie's thighs, opening him up to him. He pinned Ritchie's fist over his head and caught his mouth in a kiss. Perhaps Ritchie meant to gasp in surprise; his mouth opened, and Ian slid his tongue in, tasting deeply of him. His mouth felt divine.

Ian broke the kiss and said, "My mouth is good for something more than singing, no?"

Ritchie turned his face from him, as Roger did, in shame. This drew Ian up short. Not knowing what else to do, he released Ritchie and stepped back, giving him some breathing room.

Ritchie's chest heaved as he breathed. "You are a brute, Gillan."


	5. Chapter 5

1984

Finding the front door unlocked, Ian let himself into the house and made the trek up the winding, creaking staircase. He found Ritchie sitting in his drawing room, slumped in a plush chair, his silly pilgrim's hat crushed down on his head. Beside him, on a small table, was a record player, spinning the Free album, Fire and Water.

_Don't say you love me, baby/Don't say you love you love me/Don't say you love me/'Cuz I know it would be just a lie_

Ian knelt before him. "Hurts, doesn't it?"

Ritchie didn't acknowledge his presence.

"I knew all those years ago that he was the one you really wanted. You talked about him incessantly." That statement was stretching the truth -- Ritchie had mentioned Paul Rodgers from time to time, but every instance had loomed large in Ian's memories, gave him fuel for his jealousy.

"My voice never measured up to his. At least not in your estimation. That bluesy rasp of his... You even got that pale imitation, Coverdale, because you couldn't get the real thing." A sick thrill passed through Ian's body. At last he was lashing out, hurting Ritchie the way he'd been hurt a hundred, a thousand, times before. "It hurts not getting what you really want. I should know." Ian sneered at him. "Does it eat you up inside, chasing Paul Rodgers all these years, and all Jimmy Page had to do was crook his little finger and he came running?"

Ritchie spoke softly at first, gaining volume with every syllable. "Get out. Get out! Out!"

Ian stood, his victory already tasting of ashes in his mouth. Wasn't this supposed to be more satisfying? Wasn't this supposed to make him feel better? Ritchie was sitting before him, broken and downhearted, and Ian didn't feel very victorious at all.

He headed back down those winding stairs and out the front door, which slammed shut behind him with a finality that shook him to his bones. Looking up, Ian could see into the window of Ritchie's drawing room, and he felt Ritchie's eyes following him all the way to his vehicle.

1987

"We spent lots of time together," said Joe Lynn Turner. "Ritchie always said he valued my input."

"I'm sure he made you feel very special," said Ian drolly.

Joe sniffed. "Of course, Ritchie's not a very sentimental kind of guy. I mean, he made his own son pay for a ticket when Rainbow would play in Germany. Can you believe that? Hand on my heart, swear to God, it's the truth."

"His son?"

"Jürgen. He plays guitar, too." Joe flipped his wrist this way and that. Ian studied him, wondering at the hairlessness of his knuckles and forearms. He wondered if Joe shaved them. It seemed likely.

"I forgot all about him," said Rod Evans. "I saw him a time or two, but he was a baby. He must be grown by now."

"Oh, he's grown," said Joe, in a tone that seemed to hint at something that Ian couldn't fathom.

"I spent a weekend or two with Ritchie," said Glenn. "But I wouldn't say we were friends."

"He never cared much for either of you, did he?" Ian asked David and Glenn.

"I don't care a whit what he thinks of me," David told him.

Glenn giggled. "He pummeled Ritchie in the face backstage once!"

"He put his hands on me," said David. "I'm a Yorkshireman, we don't stand for that nonsense."

"Cor, what I would have given to see that," said Rod wistfully.


	6. Chapter 6

1971

In the dying of the year, only days after smoke drifted across the waters of Lake Geneva, Deep Purple had found refuge at the Grand Hotel, staffed by only one old lady who was nearly stone-deaf.

The cold bit at Ian's cheeks, making them blush pink. He picked his way through the tangle of wires underfoot, trailing up the spiral staircase and out the windows. He was searching out Ritchie Blackmore somewhere in this labyrinth of equipment and mattresses propped up against the walls. For some reason, Ian didn't want anyone else's company -- only Ritchie's. Roger, Jon, Paicey, they only bothered him. He didn't want them.

He must've poked his head around the right corner because -- "Oh, there you are."

Ritchie was sprawled out on a mattress, not nearly dressed enough for this frigid winter weather. He'd toed off his shoes, which lay abandoned at the foot of the mattress. He had one arm thrown back and his face rested in the crook of his own elbow. His mouth was a little slack in his sleep.

Ian slid in beside him, using his bulk to push Ritchie aside. Disturbed, Ritchie began to flail but Ian caught him by the arm. "Wot--"

"There, there," Ian crooned, pulling Ritchie tight against him. "Are you trying to catch your death of cold, Blackers?"

Ritchie grimaced and tried to move away from him, but Ian forced one hand into the V of his shirt and sucked a kiss into the side of his neck. He expected Ritchie to fight him, but was surprised when Ritchie trembled and arched up into his touch. Heartened, Ian popped the button on Ritchie's trousers and thrust his hand in. There he was -- the unmistakable evidence of his arousal hot in Ian's hand. Don't even try to pretend that I don't turn you on, you git.

"What are you doing?" Ritchie rasped out.

"Oh, you innocent! You know very well what I'm doing." Ian nipped at his ear.

"Are you going to fuck me?" There was that tremble again.

"Do you want me to?" Ian asked him. "I could, you know. And you'd love it. Or..." His lips brushed Ritchie's ear again, breath hot and thick. "Or you could fuck me." He squeezed Ritchie's member.

Footsteps thundered down the hallway, and Ritchie and Ian sprang apart guiltily. Jon Lord rounded the corner to find Ian flushed and panting on the mattress, and Ritchie stumbling up to his feet, his trousers undone to show a hint of pubic hair. Jon looked from one to the other and threw his hands up in the air, as though in defeat.

"If you two are quite done, then come and finish recording!"

They finished the album and everyone went their own ways for Christmas, reuniting shortly after the first of the year to tour. The break had done nothing for Ritchie's nerves. He returned to them in the throes of a full-blown nervous breakdown.

"I don't understand what's wrong with him," Paicey told Ian as they sat outside yet another doctor's office, waiting for Blackmore to emerge. "He does nothing but cry. They pump him full of tranquilizers and when the doctor asks him what's wrong, Ritchie just cries harder."

1987

They stumbled back to the hotel, chasing the dawn. Coverdale kept a protective arm around Glenn Hughes, while Ian Gillan took it on himself to support a giggling and very drunk Joe Lynn Turner. Rod Evans followed behind, keeping a distance between them as though to make it clear that he was not part of their group. He vanished into his own room without so much as a goodnight, and Coverdale and Hughes retreated to their own rooms for some well-earned rest.

Joe was playing with Ian's collar as Ian was trying to get the key to work. "You could stay with me tonight," he slurred.

"It's near to five in the morning," Ian told him, finally getting the key to turn. The door clicked open. "By tonight, you'll be wanting to rescind that offer."

Joe hiccuped. "No I won't! Anyway, you're very handsome." He ran his fingers through Ian's hair.

Ian sighed. "I know." He pushed Joe into his room. In the confusion, something fluttered from Joe's pocket to land on the ground. He stooped to pick it up, but the door shut and locked in Ian's face before he could give it back. He chanced a look at the piece of paper, to see if it was worth trying to slide it under the door.

 _Juergen_. And a phone number. Now, why would Joe Lynn Turner have this? Ian stuffed the piece of paper into his breast-pocket, telling himself he'd leave it at the front desk for Joe.


	7. Chapter 7

1984

"I heard you got married, Ian," said Jon during a break in recording. He meant nothing by it, just an attempt at small talk, at filling the dead air between the five of them. Separated by so many years, with nothing much in common anymore, the reunited Deep Purple didn't have much to talk about.

"I did," Ian replied, going for nonchalant but missing his mark somewhat. "She got me to stop drinking. I even come home most nights!"

Ritchie snorted. "A regular househusband, I'm sure."

Ian cut his eyes at him. Ritchie looked back boldly, and Ian read something challenging in his look. So the little woman got you to stop drinking? What other miracles has she worked? Does she fill you with passion... does she fix what's broken within you? Did she get you over me?

"No more of that sour attitude, Ritchie," Paicey chided him. "We're older now. Settling down is good for a man."

"I wouldn't know," said Ritchie archly. "I've fired all my wives."

Jon choked on his drink.

1987

"Stormbringer! I loved that album," Joe Lynn Turner confessed to David and Glenn. He turned to Ian and said, "You've listened to it, haven't you?"

"I heard it a bit on the radio," said Ian. "Sounded like a bunch of white British boys all trying to be Stevie Wonder."

Glenn burst into a flood of giggles.

"I say, we were the most accomplished band of Stevie Wonder imitators," said David drolly.

"Were you?"

"Well, have you ever heard better?" asked David.

As Ian conceded that he had a point, a noticeably ever-more-intoxicated Joe turned to Rod Evans. "What made you decide to leave Deep Purple?"

"I didn't decide anything of the sort," said Rod. "It was decided for me. Ritchie drove me and Nick Simper out of the band. We had just gone to America, got a taste of the high life. Riding all about in limousines and such. Nick took the blow especially hard."

"But why?" asked Joe.

"I s'pose the catalyst was that I got married," said Rod. Ian fell very still and very quiet. "Ritchie had some story about hearing a young Robert Plant and knowing then that Deep Purple needed someone who could scream. That we needed to go in a different musical direction. But that's all bullocks. Ritchie never cared for screaming and carrying on. His ideal singer was Paul Rodgers, someone who could squeeze every last drop of emotion from every note. A blues singer."

"He didn't like that you got married?" Joe was almost hanging on Rod. David gallantly helped pull him back onto his stool.

"No. I was becoming too independent, and Ritchie wasn't having that. He's a resentful sort. He was burning up for Paul Rodgers all these years, but it would have never worked out anyway. Paul is too much his own man."

Ian pushed his stool away from their table. "It's getting late gentlemen, I say we return to our lodging while young Mr. Turner is still able to stand."

"I'm not that drunk," said Joe, who most assuredly was that drunk, as he kept attempting to rest his head on Rod Evans' shoulder. "Anyway, the beer in this country is too warm. Has anyone ever heard of refrigeration?"

1993

Ian didn't know why he had kept that phone number all these years. It probably didn't even work anymore. The piece of paper was smudged and tattered and the young man had probably moved and changed his number in the meantime.

They didn't even have a language in common.

But Deep Purple -- reunited once again -- was heading to Germany in just a few days, and it was only fair to invite the young man to their show. Ian told himself it was an act of charity. Why, Joe Lynn Turner had said that Ritchie made his own son buy a ticket --

The phone rang.

Ian's palms were sweaty. He wiped them on his trousers.

"Juergen?"


	8. Chapter Eight

1969

It was an uncommonly steamy night in the club; Ian's shirt was already soaked through. Roger was standing by his right elbow. Ian knew this, he could feel Roger's bass-line thrumming through his body and shaking his bones, but he wasn't looking at Roger. He was looking out into the audience, his eyes locked on an upturned face. Curious eyes set under dense black brows, mouth set in a pout, and Ian liked that face.

He sung to him, just to him. Tempt me, so I might succumb to you.

Ritchie joined them onstage for a jam, and afterward, Roger sought out Ian backstage. "What did you think of him?" Ian asked, as he wiped his face with an old rag. "Bloody Blackmore!"

Roger stared at his feet, then looked up at Ian with an expression that pleaded, don't do this to us. Please.

But it was too late. Their fates were already in flux.

1972

"What is it you don't like about the song?" Ian asked Ritchie one day during rehearsals. They'd been trying to hammer out new songs all day, without much success. "The lyrics? The title? The tempo?"

"I dislike the lyrics, title, and tempo!" Ritchie snapped. "The whole thing is a wretched mess, topped off by your caterwauling."

Ian resisted the urge to flinch. "So it's my singing you've grown to hate."

"Your drinking isn't doing your voice any favors," said Ritchie.

"I can hit the high notes in 'Child In Time' with ease," retorted Ian.

Ritchie flicked his hand in a dismissive gesture. "You're serviceable for an operatic type singer. But you can't sing with soul."

"Oh, come off it, Ritchie," said Jon, melodramatically banging out something ominous on his keyboard. "You're the one who chose him!"

But something cold had seized Ian's heart in its icy grip, and for the first time, he resented the hold Ritchie had on him. He felt like a man who's only just realized he's been serving a life sentence.

1993

There's a face in the crowd, looking up at Ian Gillan, and Ian is singing to him, and only to him.

There's someone at his right elbow, and someone at his left elbow, and he knows they're there but he's not looking at either of them. The spotlight shines down. A pair of curious eyes gazes up at him. Ian reaches down, and the tips of his fingers brush the fingertips raised up in offering to him.

I'm not the villain in this story, Ian tells himself.

He reaches down again, passing a backstage pass to that outstretched hand. The other fans howl in jealousy.

Afterward, he seeks him out backstage. A word to the right people, and they're alone. The roar of the crowd is far-off but they themselves are quiet; they don't have a common language. And Ian still likes that face.

It's not too late to turn back.

Ian caresses that pouting mouth with his thumb. Those lips part, and white teeth nip at his fingers, before the tongue flicks out to soothe the injured flesh. Ian trembles a little, captures that mouth with his own, presses him against the wall.

Did he hurt you? He's hurt me. He's cast his black shadow over my life for so long. Tempt me.

They sealed their fates.

1987

"It's really sick, the things we've done to ourselves," lamented Glenn. He clasped David's hand with his own.

"Do you expect anyone to feel sorry for you?" Ian laughed at them. "You've lived what others only dream! If you squandered it, you've only yourself to blame."

Unexpectedly, Rod Evans spoke up. "I s'pose you fancy yourself the hero of this story?" he asked Ian.

Ian was struck speechless.

Rod jabbed him in the chest with a finger. "You're not the hero, Ian. You're really not."

1993

Ritchie burst into the dressing room and swung his guitar in a mad arc at Ian's head. He swung so hard he surely meant to kill Ian with it. "Damn you!" he screamed as their road manager tackled him. "How could you do this to me?! No! No!"

"Ritchie--" Ian began to say, as a roadie rushed to hold him back. Two more roadies helped their road manager wrestle Ritchie to the floor.

"My son! You and my son!" Ritchie was near to frothing at the mouth. " _I will never forgive you for this!_ "


End file.
